Integrating Thunderbird into Ubuntu’s Desktop

Sorry for the late post. Last week I was studying for a test and this week I got injured mountain-biking. I flipped off a berm into a pond (my new bike came shortly after).

Back to reality. Many people prefer Thunderbird to Evolution (Ubuntu’s default mail client) simply because it’s better. However, there is a considerable disadvantage to using Thunderbird in Ubuntu 10.04. Thunderbird is not as well integrated into the the messaging menu as Evolution. By that, I mean it’s not integrated at all, but fear not! It can be done! We have the technology!

First, you’ll want to hit alt-f2 and enter:

gksu /usr/share/applications

Simple enough, right?

Next, find “thunderbird.desktop.” Right-click it and select “edit with gedit,” or whatever text editor you prefer (like SciTE). Replace the code with the following:

Go to /usr/share/indicators/messages/applications and add a file called “thunderbird” with the contents:

/usr/share/applications/thunderbird.desktop

Then save, logout and log back in. This will only get you so far. To get Notify-OSD notifications, you’re going to have to install a Thunderbird plug-in called “Libnotify Popups.” It’s relatively simple to do, just head on to Tools > Addons, search for it and install it. Just remember to turn off Thunderbird’s default notifications to avoid redundancy and also to avoid redundancy.

Please enjoy responsibly!

Also, if you want to change the icon to the regular Thunderbird one, just change: